Ricardo Dunn
A South African Police Service diversity programme — aimed at sensitising police recruits to issues of race, gender and sexual orientation — has been put on ice. The pilot programme, initiated by the SAPS career- planning department, was to have started this year.
Malene De Beer, a trainer at Technikon SA, which is contracted to do entry-level training for the SAPS, says the diversity programme was one part of a module on community policing. The other two sections are a bridging course and a research project.
The module was designed by the former SAP in an attempt to transform policing attitudes. But De Beer, a trained social worker, feels that the programme has been sidelined as “the issue of attitude change in the police force is not considered important by some
“It was felt that by including the diversity programme in the module, the sheer volume of the content would be too much,” she says. But she suspects that the real reason is there are issues which people just don’t want to talk about.
“At some of our workshops with young recruits, there are many negative stereotypes about people who are different. Many of them become defensive when the subject of homosexuality comes up and some of them even deny that homosexuals exist.”
Diversity training for police officers already in service has also been put on hold.
Brigadier Joyce Benade from the SAPS in-service and specialised training department, says that the department is currently doing a “situation analysis on all training”. The police in-house diversity programme has been carried over until the “analysis” is